Outriders (4 page)

Before the door was fully sealed, the vehicle was already pulling smoothly away from the curb, under Kev’s illegally manual control. He kept it reined in, enough to look natural for the usual AI-managed behavior. But it was always reassuring to know he could punch it if he had to. Kev fiddled with the pad, kicked off an algorithm that would gradually transition the vehicle’s white exterior to grey and from grey to some other equally forgettable color. The process was slow enough that casual observers wouldn’t notice and the most perceptive ones might only think how interesting it was how different the light could be from street to Martian street.

It was a ten-minute drive to the drop off and then a twenty-minute walk to the shipyard where Vector’s not-strictly-legal off-world transport was waiting for him. He had a couple of days of hard work ahead of him, crewing the hauler to pay his fare, which wasn’t particularly appealing after three weeks of surveillance and planning. But it was all part of the plan. And it kept some truth in his cover; he’d claimed some local legal troubles to the ship’s first mate, all a misunderstanding, best if he disappeared for a while. That story and three hundred
brin
had been enough to earn a spot on
Cortesia 3
as a loader, which meant a lot of manual work, not much sleep, and even less time for chit chat.

“We good?” Kev asked after a couple of minutes of careful driving.

“We’re good,” Vector answered. “You get the place buttoned up?”

“Clean as it can be without burning it to the ground.”

Vector nodded and then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The adrenaline was burning off now, and the weight of the whole planet settled on him. They rode in silence for a few more minutes, during which time Vector’s mind replayed the entire takedown in pristine detail. Just over thirty seconds from tip to tail. And every second of it earned a review as he analyzed what he’d done and what he should have done. Good call to take the big guard first. But he could have acted sooner, gone with the original plan and been closer to the exit when he’d completed the task, rather than having to walk through the entire crowd to get there. More exposure than necessary. He was lucky there hadn’t been any heroes in the crowd. Though there almost never were. Almost.

“You all right, Doc?” Kev asked, interrupting Vector’s mental playback.

“Yeah,” he said glancing at his friend and then rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Just beat.”

“I hear ya. How long’s your trip back?”

“Three days to link up, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

Kev nodded. “Should be showing up about the same time as you then. She going to give us a couple of days off?”

“I wouldn’t bet a beer on it.”

“Yeah.”

Kev wheeled the vehicle smoothly up to the drop off. “This is you,” he said.

“Yep. Thanks Kev.”

“Always, brother.”

“Safe travels.”

“See you soon.”

The two men shook hands and then Vector hopped out. He didn’t look back as Kev disappeared back into the flowing traffic. Kev had handled the hotel and surrounding area’s surveillance feeds, which meant any viz of the crime would have to be collected from any eyewitnesses who had the presence of mind to record the event. Worst case scenario figured about fifty minutes for Elliston Police to get all the details sorted out and start distributing descriptions. Vector always cut the worst case estimates in half, which meant he needed to make a twenty-minute walk in about fifteen, without looking like he was trying to run away from something.

He set off toward the shipyard. Seventeen minutes later, as he was lining up to board the
Cortesia 3,
he checked in one last time.

“All right, Kid, I’m clear,” Vector said.

“Copy that, Doc,” Kid answered. “EPD showed up about twenty minutes ago. I’ll sit tight for a couple of hours, see how it shakes out.”

“You good on exfil?”

“Yeah, flight’s out in two days.”

“Keep your head down, Kiddo.”

“Roger that. Catch you top-side.”

“See you there.”

Vector waved to
Cortesia 3
’s first mate and got a stony-faced single nod in response. Three days of hard labor. Three days of penance. And after that, a new name.

Vector boarded the ship, one job completed and another no doubt eagerly awaiting his return.

THREE

T
HE ROOM
L
INCOLN
entered had a single chair with its back to the door, placed in front of a long table with seats for five. On either side of the table stood directional lights on tall stands. Those lights were off, but they were angled towards the lone chair. The intent there was pretty obvious; anybody sitting in that chair with those lights in his face wouldn’t be able to see anything else beyond. There was a second door in the back wall. No windows, nothing on the walls. A small glossy black sphere in the ceiling caught Lincoln’s eye. Camera. Someone was watching him. Probably several someones. He hesitated by the door, uncertain of what he was expected to do. He had a pretty good guess which chair was for him, but he wasn’t all that anxious to take it just yet.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” a voice said over a crackly speaker. “Please be seated.”

Lincoln walked confidently across the room and sat down at one of the chairs behind the table.

“In the other chair, candidate,” the voice said, clearly not amused. Lincoln smiled to himself. Everything about Selection was a mental game. Funny how they didn’t seem to like it when he played too. For a moment he thought about sliding over to the chair next to him, still behind the table, but he dismissed the idea. He’d had his little moment of fun.

When he sat down in the lone chair, just as he’d anticipated, the overhead lights went off and the bright directional lights flared, bathing him in strong white light. The lights were angled so they weren’t beaming directly into his eyes, but there was no way he could see anything else going on behind them. And apparently there wasn’t anything else he was expected to do, other than sit. So he sat there. Waiting.

And waiting.

It was almost impossible to keep track of time sitting in that bubble of light surrounded by a sea of darkness. Another part of the game, undoubtedly. Anything they could do to rattle him, or put him on edge. Anything that might make his cracks easier to see. Lincoln folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes, focused on his breathing. Steady in, steady out. Everything else was beyond his control anyway, so he just let it do whatever it was going to do.

Some time later he heard the rattle of a door open from somewhere behind the lights. Quick footsteps clacked across the faux-tile floor. Four or five people by the sound of it. Five made sense with the number of chairs behind the table, but Lincoln wouldn’t put it past these people to manipulate even that little detail. Putting out more chairs than they actually needed, or maybe fewer. That was one of the things he’d picked up early on in Selection; they made it such a point to mess with your expectations and assumptions that eventually you came to expect that everything was a trick. Being comfortable with the uncertainty was probably one of the reasons that Lincoln had made it this far.

Chairs scraped, uniforms rustled. His interrogators made themselves comfortable. Lincoln didn’t open his eyes. Not yet.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” a voice said. Stern, clipped, feminine with a hard edge. The same one that had issued instructions over the speaker before. Lincoln didn’t respond immediately. Just kept his eyes closed, and finished two more full cycles of breathing. They’d kept him waiting, and he’d been patient. They could wait a little longer.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” the voice said again, louder with the fuller weight of authority behind it.

“I’m listening, ma’am,” Lincoln said. But he still didn’t open his eyes. He
was
listening, intently in fact, picking out whatever little details he could with his ears, knowing his eyes wouldn’t show him anything new. Two people were whispering at the right end of the table. The woman who’d spoken was at the other end, in either the first or second seat. Someone in the center of the table was hurriedly sketching designs on the table with a fingertip; most likely reviewing Lincoln’s file on a holoscreen only the user could see.

“Very well,” the woman said. “We’re going to ask you a number of questions, candidate. It is important that you answer them to the fullest possible extent, with the utmost honesty. Many of these answers we already know. Any deception on your part will be grounds for immediate release from Selection. Do you understand?”

“On
my
part,” Lincoln said.

“Pardon me?” she said.

“Any deception on
my
part, you said,” he answered. “Kind of leaves the door open for you there, doesn’t it?”

There was a pause, and though he couldn’t hear it, Lincoln liked to imagine at least one of the people on the other side of the table cracking a smile. Someone on the left cleared his throat. So that made five of them after all. Or, at least five.

“Do you understand?” the woman repeated.

“Very well, yes, ma’am.”

“Good, candidate,” the woman said. “We will begin.”

Lincoln opened his eyes.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” said a man on the right side of the table. “What’s the most impressive thing on your service record?”

Lincoln took a breath before he answered.

“Depends on who’s looking at it, sir.”

“In your opinion.”

“In my opinion, the most impressive thing about my service record is the many fine men and women I’ve been allowed to serve alongside, sir.”

“That’s very diplomatic of you, candidate, but you’re not getting graded on humility here.”

“Utmost honesty, sir. Your rules, not mine.”

A second voice broke in; a man on the far left. That put the woman in the second chair from the left, then.

“Atmospheric and suborbital jump rated; fair number of successful zero-G operations; operational combat profiling and combat tracking; Ranger and Pathfinder quals; high marks for intelligence; and communications certs. Decent linguistics. A few medals to show off. That sound like you?”

“That sounds like just about anybody in my line of work, sir.”

“I miss anything important?”

“No mention of my wit and charm?” Lincoln said.

“There’s nothing listed in the record,” the man replied.

“Ah. Strange,” Lincoln said.

“An officer with this kind of record and this many years in the service, seems like you’d rank a little higher.”

“My greatest weakness, undoubtedly, sir.”

“How’s that?”

“Too much time in the mud, not enough polishing the brass,” said Lincoln, with a smile.

The man didn’t sound amused. “You feel you’ve been unfairly overlooked for promotion?”

“I’m not a particularly smart man, sir. I mostly go where I’m pointed. I’m certain if my betters thought I was fit to serve in a higher capacity, they would have elevated me appropriately with all due speed and urgency.”

“I should note,” the woman broke in, “there
is
a mention in your official record about a tendency towards sarcasm.”

“My second greatest weakness, ma’am,” Lincoln said. “Undoubtedly.”

“Any issues with subordination?” the woman asked.

“None,” Lincoln said. He flashed a smile. “At least for my part.”

“How many doors are on this hall, candidate?” one of the men asked.

An oddball question. But the image came to mind easily enough.

“Five plain ones,” Lincoln said. “And one with a little extra character.”

“Mm,” the woman responded. And then followed with, “Tell me about Royal Warden.”

The two words instantly robbed Lincoln of any sense of control he thought he had in the situation. Apparently they were done with the pleasantries and were now going straight for the throat. He did his best to maintain his steady breathing, but he couldn’t escape the sudden rush of heat to his face. Unwelcome memories threatened his calm.

“I’m sure you have all the details already, ma’am,” he said.

“I’d like your perspective, candidate.” She said it with such coolness, as if she was asking his opinion of the particular shade of beige they’d chosen for those walls.

Lincoln took another settling breath and swallowed. Gathered himself. “Royal Warden was the single greatest personal failure of my life, ma’am.”

“In what way?” she pressed.

“Sixteen of the finest souls I’ve ever known, lost. On my orders, by my direction.”

“Please elaborate,” she said.

So this was how it was going to be. Lincoln thought he’d prepared himself for just about anything. For some reason he hadn’t considered that they might rake him over the coals again for a decade-old operation, especially not in such clinical terms. But the only way through it was forward. He adopted a professional attitude, reporting on past events and trying to ignore the role he played; his shield against the memories.

“While serving in an advisory capacity to the Honduran National Defense Force…” he said, then paused to clear the tightness out of his throat. “I received intelligence of an arms shipment moving towards my area of responsibility. Our analysis determined the shipment was intended to equip elements that were actively working to further destabilize the region. Having operated in the area for several months, I was aware of extensive tunnel networks in use by those elements. The concern was raised that if the shipment was allowed to reach the network, the arms would be impossible to locate until they were being used against our allies. After consulting with local informants and senior enlisted, I dispatched a force comprised of ten Honduran National Defense Force troopers supported by six United American Federation soldiers under my command to intercept and capture the shipment in transit.”

Boone, Shepherd, Ryoko, Jimenez, Harrison, Singh. Their faces and voices flashed through his mind. Smiles, inside jokes, names on tombstones.

“You mention local informants and senior enlisted,” the woman said. “What course of action did your superior officers advise?”